End Game
by hatondog
Summary: Post-launch, Season 4.5 finale. Where is Astraeus and why? And will an unusual emotional connection be what brings them home? Completed w/2 alternate M rated epilogues. This T rated piece continues either epilogue. Jo/Zane and most others.
1. Chapter 1

End Game

"I'm going to find her, and I'm going to kill her." Carter's voice over the phone was colder than Jo had ever heard it. She wanted to dismiss his comment as the product of shock, but couldn't. He didn't sound shocked, or scared, or even angry. He spoke of killing Beverly Barlowe as calmly as if he was discussing a weekend picnic.

More than the news that Astraeus was lost, possibly destroyed, Carter's casual mention of revenge shook Jo to the core. Even if the ship and its crew came home, the lives of everyone she knew in Eureka would be altered forever.

_If_ they came home…Jo pushed the thought from her mind. If she allowed herself to think about the loss of people aboard Astraeus, she'd never move from the campsite where she'd returned Carter's call. The urge to scream was fighting her for control—if she gave in, she felt she might never stop.

When she'd driven from Eureka days before, the thought that something might go wrong in the Astraeus launch never crossed her mind. Now, that seemed like lunacy—she knew the risks inherent in every step of the mission. Like airplanes, take-offs and landings were points of greatest risk in flight. She'd _known_ that, yet had banished the knowledge to a far corner of her mind.

In the days before she'd left, she'd felt an increasingly insistent urge, almost a compulsion, to leave Eureka quickly. Any emotion that bound her there felt like a barrier to her planned flight. Pushing concern for the safety of the launch from her mind helped kept her escape route open. So intent had she been on putting miles between herself and Eureka that she'd suppressed not only the desire to watch the launch, but every urge since to call and find out how it had gone.

Hoping to leave herself no time to reconsider or grieve, she'd left her goodbyes to the last minute. Several times during launch day, she'd tried to broach the subject of her plans with Carter, only to choke. Finally, she'd decided the coward's way out of writing him a note was better than risking an emotional scene that might break her resolve to leave. That hadn't panned out, but thinking that she might escape without facing Carter had muted her panic over saying goodbye.

However, handing Zane a similar note in lieu of facing him wasn't an option. She owed him more than that, and couldn't deny herself seeing him one last time.

She'd gone to him in a crowded room as a buffer against any prolonged interaction. Walking in, she'd steeled herself, approaching him with a business-like demeanor. Yet when Zane had looked up in response to her call, she almost stumbled. Seeing him in his flight suit, minutes away from being locked into his bio-pod, made their imminent separation all too real. Still, he'd joked and she'd stammered out a stiff good-bye, so the moment seemed almost bearable.

Until she'd pulled back from their brief hug to see the sadness in his eyes, all humor gone. He'd shaken his head at her lame teasing about his other hookups, and a lump rose in her throat at his denial. She'd intended to walk away, even leaned back to take a step, but couldn't go. Surely just one last kiss couldn't hurt…until it did. So much so that she'd actually moaned against the emotion. Pulling her mouth from his, she nearly bolted from the room. And so missed seeing Zane staring after her, swallowing hard against the lump in his own throat.

Now he was gone. As were Allison, Fargo, Grace, Holly and…no. Jo shook their faces from her head. She had to focus on Carter, who was here. Here, and moving toward doing something unimaginable.

"Carter, wait. Think of Kevin and Jenna—they need you until Allison gets back," Jo pleaded. "_Please_…don't do anything, at least not until I can be there to help. If Beverly did this, she's not done yet—unless we know _why_ she'd interfere with the mission, we can't hope to stop her from whatever she has in store next. If she _isn't_ behind it, you taking off after her will only delay us in finding whoever is."

"Oh, she did this," Carter said grimly. "She wants to destroy Eureka and all of its work. Her trying to control Allison was just the first step. I should have seen that—she got away with a lot of data when she used Allison to break into GD's archives. Henry thinks she may have gotten the launch _and_ navigation codes for Astraeus. _She _changed the destination codes, _she _caused them to be lost out there. If we don't stop her, God knows where she'll take them…what will happen to them…". His voice broke.

"I know—that's why we have to be able to anticipate her next move. If it's her, she has all the cards—we need to get ahead of that curve. Carter, you called me…please give me time to get back before you go after her. I can be there in a day or less—just keep looking for leads and we'll follow them. Together." Despite the certainty of her words, Jo felt curiously detached. Yes, she was afraid for Zane and the others aboard Astraeus and desperate to stop Carter from doing something he'd regret. But the compulsion that had driven her to a remote portion of the Oregon wilderness was intact.

In fact, she dreaded the thought of returning to Eureka, even as she was appalled at the idea that she might _not _rush to her friends' aid. What the hell was wrong with her?

Carter was quiet for a long moment. Just when Jo thought their call had been disconnected, he spoke. "I'll be here, Jo. But hurry—one way or the other, I am going to stop her. If they're…." He paused, the word 'alive' hanging unspoken. "We _will _get them back. And shewon't have the chance to do anything like this again—ever."

_EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA_

Henry, Jack and Senator Wen stood at the mission control panel, looking through the glass pane separating it from the now empty Astraeus launch pad. Around them, exhausted scientists were engaged in intense discussions revolving around the alarmingly thin data they'd managed to gather around the sabotaged launch. The group assembled at the window had been quiet for several minutes, lost in their thoughts.

"I'm sorry." The Senator broke the silence. "This is awful for Eureka, for the country…but I imagine that pales in comparison to how this feels for you."

Henry nodded. Jack just continued to stare at the point where he'd been standing when Astraeus had flickered then vanished as the Faster Than Light module had activated, taking its crew and Allison as its unexpected passenger into…what? Space? Limbo? Somewhere else on Earth? At the last thought, he jerked.

"Henry, is it possible that they never left the planet? I mean, our orbit? Could they have just been pulled somewhere else here, to some other location on Earth?" Jack asked.

Henry considered the idea for a few minutes before slowly shaking his head. "I don't think so. Is it possible? Maybe…but, we'd know by now. Someone's tracking system, whether ours or another nation's, would have picked them up. Even the best cloaking devices in existence couldn't completely erase the signature of a vessel that large. And if it was tracked, whoever captured the signal could easily trace it back to a U.S. launch. In which case, they'd almost certainly get in touch with our government, who would know it was Astraeus." He looked toward Senator Wen, who nodded agreement.

"So, we'd know too. But…" Henry trailed off. He didn't need to state the obvious—none of them knew where the ship had gone.

Jack slumped slightly. "So, they're…out there, somewhere." He gestured toward space. Henry responded at nearly a whisper as he turned back to the window. "Yes…I hope."

_EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA_

Astraeus floated through space, neither as far away as Titan nor as close as the Earth's orbit. All 21 of its passengers, the crew and one more, were slumbering in stasis, unaware that their journey had taken a very wrong turn.

The launch clock on the wall between the crew's bio-pod chamber and the jump seat holding Allison Blake in place went black, then reset. Another countdown began.

In a building on Earth far away from Eureka, a slim woman moved her eyes between two display screens. On one, an image of the launch clock appeared, numbers counting down. On the other, Jo Lupo was sitting at the wheel of a car stopped at an intersection.

To the left was an on-ramp for Interstate 5 north, toward Eureka. To the right, the southbound ramp led toward California. Beverly Barlowe smiled wryly as Jo accelerated onto the freeway. She gestured to the screen, then spoke to a man standing beside her. "Get started now. This time, we get everything we want."

**A/N: This is my effort to both make sense of the season 4.5 finale and to stave off Eureka withdrawal until it returns. Which should, according to Jaime Paglia, be in spring 2012 (not counting the holiday ep). Or summer 2012. Or whenever SyFy so desires…SIGH.**

**BTW, I've never been a fan of the Beverly/Consortium story arc and didn't want her butting in here. But the tie-in between the Omega Girls ep and the finale seemed pretty clear, IMO, so here she is, the pushy broad.**


	2. Chapter 2

End Game (Chapter 2)

_Usual Disclaimer: Don't own Eureka, wouldn't have canceled it if I did._

Zane stirred in his bio-pod. More asleep than awake, he tried to sit up, only to find himself unable to move. Straps held him down and the pod's cover was only an inch above his oxygen mask. Panic set in before conscious thought could take over.

He'd never mentioned it for fear of being disqualified for the mission, but he was deeply claustrophobic. Being trapped months before in a small Apollo capsule with Fargo for an unscheduled space flight had unnerved him to the point of sickness. Years before, the idea of living in a prison cell had been just as frightening, as much from the loss of space as of freedom.

The realization that he was safely ensconced in his pod only mitigated his fear a little. He sucked in air through the mask, fighting rising nausea. Suddenly, the stasis gel surrounding Zane drained away and the pod cover opened. He was out of it almost before he could unhook the restraining straps. Breathing hard, he looked sheepishly around the pod chamber, hoping that no one had seen his ungraceful exit.

It was empty. All of the other pods were still locked. Confused, he checked a few of the closest pods, the ones belonging to Grace and Fargo. So far as he could tell, they were occupied, but shouldn't have been. The pods were programmed to open simultaneously when the FTL module disengaged to slow the ship's forward movement. From then on, navigation was supposed to be handled by the crew. Which, at this point, appeared to consist only of Zane.

At the thought of the ship traveling without guidance, he rushed toward the main control room, only to slide to a halt at the sight of Allison unbuckling herself from the jump seat. His relief at not being the only person upright was immediately replaced by suspicion. As she stood, he grabbed her arms and pushed her back against a wall.

"Zane, what the hell?" she sputtered. "Who are you?" he demanded, then shook his head at his own question. If she was under someone else's control, she wouldn't announce it. He shuffled through memories to find a question that only Allison could answer. "How long have Henry and Grace been married?" Recognizing his concern that she might actually be Beverly, Allison stopped struggling against Zane's grip. "Since 1947," she said, looking directly into his eyes.

After a tense moment, he released her. "I'm sorry, Allison. But something's gone wrong and I had to make sure you're you." She nodded. "What are you doing here?"

"The launch went off early before I could get off the ship. Other than that, I don't know any more about what's happening here than you do. Where are the others?" she asked.

"Still in stasis. Which is one more thing that's wrong—we should have all been sprung at the same time. Especially since it'd be nice to have someone awake who knows how to fly this thing—that wasn't in my job description. I was on my way to give it a shot, or at least try to keep us from hitting something big. Like a planet. "

"You mean, like _that _planet?" Allison gestured behind Zane to a viewing window. He turned. Through the glass, stars glowed dully through a haze of atmosphere. Beyond the haze was an orb of green and blue.

"Earth," said Zane flatly. "Earth," confirmed Allison. After a moment's silence, Zane muttered, "Short trip. Hardly worth packing for." Despite the severity of their situation, Allison smiled. Zane was certainly… _resilient_ was the most flattering word that came to mind. Which was exactly why he'd been chosen for this mission. If only one crew member could be functioning, she wasn't unhappy that it was Zane.

"It looks like we're in a stable orbit for now, but we need to wake the others quickly to maintain it. I'll check their life support status before trying to override the bio-pod controls. And I need you to start mining whatever data you can find to explain what happened." Falling into command mode helped push Allison's anxiety aside and allowed Zane to focus on what he did better than anyone—following the crumbs of an electronic trail through a computer system.

They went quickly toward the control room, not noticing the time on the launch clock countdown.

22 hours, 59 minutes remaining.

_EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA_

Driving toward Eureka, Jo was working hard against the impulse to turn around and head for California instead. She'd been so convinced that leaving her home of 10 years was necessary that returning after only a few days seemed like a failure. But the idea of abandoning the people she loved was abhorrent, so much so that Jo was disgusted at her own resistance to return to them. Lost in her internal war, she didn't immediately notice her increasing sense of unease.

Suddenly, a wave of panic came over Jo so strongly that she had to swing the car onto the shoulder or risk losing control. The sides of the car seemed to press in on her and she began to feel suffocated. Nausea rose in her throat. Drawing in sharp gasps of air, she grabbed at the seatbelt and for the door handle to escape. Then, as quickly as it had started, the panic subsided, leaving an odd touch of embarrassment in its wake.

She blinked hard, wondering if she could still be asleep, tucked into her sleeping bag. Or maybe she'd crashed somewhere on the road, and this was all the result of a bang on the head. Really, even that would be preferable to being trapped in the morass of inexplicable emotions she was experiencing. For a woman who'd kept a tight rein over herself for so much of her adult life, it was as if every suppressed or ignored feeling she'd had was fighting for release. Gasping out a short laugh, she decided that if menopause ended up being anything like this emotional roller coaster, she'd pass, thanks anyway.

Fortunately, that experience was still far ahead of her. But Eureka wasn't. Pulling back onto the road, she headed for the city limits.

_EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA_

Allison pressed a series of buttons a third time. Vital signs for the Astraeus crew members were within normal limits, and she'd managed to drain each bio-pod of its stasis gel. The pod control system showed that the pods were unlocked and ejected from their chambers. But none of them were—instead, each pod and its resident stayed just where they'd been when the ship had launched, no matter how many times Allison entered the wake-up command.

At another station, Zane was facing his own set of frustrations. He'd gotten far enough into the ship's memory to confirm that the launch codes had been triggered from somewhere other than Eureka. Where, though, remained a mystery. Worse, no matter which path he followed, navigation control was unavailable and the destination codes locked down. He'd broken through firewalls of a US government system to transfer 3 million dollars from its accounts with fewer problems—and lower stakes.

Lost in code, he barely registered Allison's departure from the control room. Or the door which closed behind her. The red light next to it which signaled that the door had been locked from the outside also escaped his notice.

His fingers began to fly across the keyboard. "DESTINATION CONFIRMED" appeared on the screen in front of Zane, but he didn't look up. The words "COORDINATES SET, ARRIVAL _T MINUS_ 6 HOURS" began flashing in red. Still, Zane continued to press keys as additional information filled the screen. "NAVIGATION CONTROL, HOME BASE." As "SECONDARY CONTROL, Z. DONOVAN" appeared, Zane's fingers finally stopped moving.

Spots of blood were splashed across them. Raising his hands, he looked numbly at his fingers, then wiped one across his nose, where blood was dripping. Looking up, he saw the computer screen was filled with gibberish.

The room was spinning slightly as he went to the door and pressed the open command. It remained shut. After the command failed a second time, fury broke through his dizziness. He began to pound on the door, yelling for Allison. No response. He spun back toward the computer station he'd been at and saw the messages on the screen, no longer an indecipherable mass of letters. Destination codes and confirmations. His name, which he had no memory of entering.

As he started toward the computer, a blinding pain shot through his head. Cursing, he pulled at the life support sensors on his temples, which seemed to be the source of the agony. Before he could remove them, however, the flow of blood from his nose increased dramatically and Zane dropped to the floor, unconscious.

Many millions of miles away, Jo whirled toward Carter and began hitting him repeatedly with her fists. Just moments before, she'd walked toward him at GD, shocked at how haggard he and Henry looked. Neither had slept or eaten much in the days since Astraeus had gone missing. After brief hugs, they had started toward the mission control room so she could be debriefed.

Suddenly she was in the grip of rage nearly as strong as she'd felt in response to an emotional infection that swept through the town many months earlier. She'd barely realized that she was pounding on Carter's chest until he'd pinned her arms down. The anger faded as abruptly as it had begun. They looked at each other in shock.

"Jo?" Carter asked incredulously. She shook her head. "I…I don't know where that came from. I'm so sorry, maybe the stress, I'm _so_ sorry…". Jo was aware that she was babbling but was at a loss to explain herself. Carter and Henry exchanged worried looks.

"It's ok. This has been a rough time for all of us." The three continued on, Jo a step behind as she unthinkingly wiped her hands together then across her nose again and again.

Henry's cell phone rang, startling all of them. He'd assigned ringtones to different people, and this was the one reserved for Grace. Stunned, he quickly answered the call.

"Is this Dr. Henry Deacon, ground commander for the Astraeus mission?" The voice was familiar, but it wasn't Grace's. In his disappointment and confusion, Henry didn't immediately recognize the speaker.

"This is Henry Deacon. Who is this?"

"Hello, Henry. It's good to speak with you again, although I'm sure we both wish it could be under better circumstances." Henry's expression became grim as the caller's identity became clear.

"Beverly. You've put the lives of everyone on that ship in danger, although I know that doesn't mean anything to you. What the hell do you want?" Henry could barely stop himself from shouting threats. This woman was like a recurring bad dream—the details of what she did each time she surfaced varied, but the impact was never good. For a moment, he heartily wished that Allison had allowed Beverly's father to die on their trip back in time. Just then, a world in which Beverly had never been born sounded like paradise.

"I know you don't believe me, but I want everyone on that ship to make it home alive almost as much as you do. With a little cooperation, we can make that happen." Henry had turned his phone's speaker on so Carter and Jo could hear the conversation. The smug tone of Beverly's voice was like fingernails running down a blackboard.

"I say again," snapped Henry. "What do you want?"

"Just this," Beverly responded. "You will talk to Senator Wen. I know she's there. You will persuade her to pull all funding from Eureka, closing the facility. For good, Henry. It all ends here."

"And if we don't?" Henry asked, suspecting he already knew the answer.

"Then in 21 hours, the Astraeus will crash into Earth. The destination has already been chosen and the course set. The crew will not be the only casualties. Oh, and in the unlikely event that you manage to find our facility before then, it won't help. We are controlling the ship from here, but also through a person on board. We also have additional…_leverage_ we can deploy on the ground in Eureka. Stopping us from acting here will not stop the crash, it will only ensure it." She paused for a moment, then continued in a softer tone.

"Don't let this happen, Henry. It's not worth it to you or anyone else there. But, rest assured, as much as I would regret the loss of life, there is a greater good being served here. I will not hesitate to follow through if you fail. You have 20 hours, 58 minutes from now to prevent a tragedy much larger than the loss of GD."

The call was disconnected.


	3. Chapter 3

End Game (Chapter 3)

Zane opened his eyes to the sight of legs surrounding him. Several members of the Astraeus crew, including Allison and Fargo, were looking at him with cautious expressions. One of Jo's security goons on the crew grabbed him from behind, pulling him to his feet.

"Hey!," Zane protested, trying to pull away. "Zane." Allison raised a hand to still him. "We need to know what happened here."

"You and me both," he snapped. "I was doing just that—trying to figure out what happened and where we are when you locked me in here. What was THAT about?"

"Um," said Fargo uncomfortably. "It looks like you already know where we are." He pointed to the bank of computer screens. Zane turned. The words "NAVIGATION CONTROL, HOME BASE. SECONDARY CONTROL, Z. DONOVAN" were still up on the center screen. "The question is," continued Fargo, "where are we going?"

"I don't _know_," Zane said through gritted teeth. "I didn't do that." He didn't feel as certain as he sounded. In truth, his memory of exactly what he'd been doing before discovering that he'd been locked into the control room was fuzzy. He'd been working on the computer's database…and there'd been blood…he looked at his hands. They were still spattered with red.

"Zane," Allison said softly. "Do you actually remember what you did after I left the room?"

For a moment, he didn't answer. A jolt of fear went through him when he realized that he really couldn't recall what he'd done in any detail. He slowly shook his head.

Grace stepped up. "I'm sorry, Zane, but we'll have to detain you until we figure this out. " Turning to the guard, she said "Take him to…". She paused, hating what she had to do. "To the holding cell." Zane flinched. Allison reached to him, resting her hand briefly on his shoulder. "Don't worry. I think I've been down this road before and know what's happening."

Zane looked puzzled until her meaning sank in. His eyes widened. "You think…Beverly? She's controlling me like she did you?"

"Oh, god, _no._" Fargo exclaimed. "I mean…that would just be wrong." Briefly, a vision of Zane in a dress crossed everyone's minds. He and Fargo shuddered. Allison and Grace just bit back small smiles.

"No, not exactly." Allison said. "At least, not in the same way. You and the rest of the crew were scanned extensively for any neuro anomalies, and we would have picked up an implant right away. But something more temporary and less robust than an implant could be a possibility. If so, that might explain your nosebleed—if you were fighting whatever it is for control, that could have raised your blood pressure to the point you passed out. But if the effect _was _temporary, you may be over it now."

"Too late to stop whatever I did," Zane said grimly.

"Hey, we still don't know what happened. It could be that whatever you were supposed to be doing never got finished—you lost a ton of blood over there." Fargo gestured to the computer console. "Must have put up a good fight. Anyway, hijacking this ship took a hell of a lot of effort and time. Whatever is going on here, it didn't start with you. But we'll need your help to stop it, so get going and let Allison dig through your brain, ok?"

Zane nodded. "Yeah. Thanks, Fargo." Allison turned to the door. He allowed the guard to guide him after her.

_EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA_

Sitting in front of Fargo's desk where Senator Wen was now seated, Jo felt a jolt of fear run through her. Not that there wasn't anything to be scared about, but there didn't seem to be any concrete reason for her reaction.

She blew out a sigh of frustration. On the upside, the nagging compulsion to leave Eureka had vanished. Although she still intended to go away to think at some point, it no longer felt necessary to do it immediately. One less bit of crazy to deal with…now if only these random flashes of emotion would stop, she'd feel herself again.

Senator Wen was shaking her head in response to Henry's explanation of the demand for Eureka to be shut down. "Given what's happened with this mission, I have to tell you that Eureka's funding would be in danger in any event. But it's more complicated than just cancelling a program—few people know that Eureka exists, much less how much we spend on it every year. Shutting it down will take a massive re-budgeting effort, not to mention extensive reporting of what has been going on here for decades. It won't be pretty, and can't happen quickly."

Carter rose. "There are _lives_ at stake here—we don't even know how many. And you're telling me we can't save them because of some _paperwork_?" Henry and Jo spoke at the same time. "Jack-" "Carter-". Wen spoke over them. "General. Please come in."

General Mansfield walked stiffly into the room, looking as uncomfortable as ever to find himself in the company of scientists. "The call is scheduled to begin in 5 minutes," he said.

"Thank you," the Senator responded. She turned to Parrish, who was standing off to the side. "Dr. Parrish. Are you certain that the stasis gel couldn't be compromised by a change to the ship's destination—that the crew would still likely have survived the launch?"

"Of course," Parrish responded. "My gel was designed to keep them alive for much longer than the scheduled travel time, and through conditions much rougher than anticipated. If they aren't alive, gel failure wouldn't be the reason." His satisfied smile faded as he saw the stricken faces of Carter, Henry and Jo. "That is, I'm sure they're all alive. And well. I'm certain of it. They didn't even need the stasis gel, not really." He looked directly at Carter. "The jump seat alone was protection enough for the launch."

The phone rang, breaking the silence which followed this awkward pronouncement. Larry's voice came over the speaker. "It's the _White House,_" he said in an awed tone. After a few seconds of hold music, a familiar face appeared on the screen behind Fargo's desk. "Senator Wen, General Mansfield. Are you there?"

"Yes, sir, Mr. President," Mansfield responded. "Dr. Henry Deacon, ground commander for the mission; Chief Security Officer Josephina Lupo…" Since Jo had returned and resumed her role as GD's head of security, she didn't correct him. "Sheriff Jack Carter, Eureka, and Dr. Isaac Parrish of General Dynamics are present as well." They all nodded respectfully toward the screen.

"I know that you have pressing tasks before you, so will make this short. I understand the situation with Astraeus, and the demands that have been made by the Consortium with respect to Eureka. First, let me express my sincere condolences on the loss of the ship's crew. I know that you all have friends, family and loved ones among them. You have my promise that we will do everything in our power to make sure that they return home safely."

After a pause, the President continued. "However, it is the policy of the United States government and of this Administration not to negotiate with terrorists or comply with their demands. As such, whatever the future may hold for Eureka, we will not close the facility now. Instead, as General Mansfield will explain to you in greater detail, we are treating this situation as a military operation. We will act accordingly against the Consortium, and will deploy rescue teams as necessary to recover the ship and its crew."

With his next words, the President's tone softened. "I'm sorry. I know you hoped for a more certain outcome. But this is what is best for not only the mission, but also the country. General Mansfield will fill you in…you and the crew are in our thoughts and prayers."

For several long moments after the call ended, no one spoke, each lost to their own thoughts. Clearing his throat, the General captured their attention. "So, this is what is going to happen…" he began.

_EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA_

On Astraeus, crew members were distributed around various stations, working frantically to regain control of the ship. Fargo and Holly were focused on the communications system, trying to reestablish a link to GD. Allison was starting an analysis of a blood sample from Zane, who was pacing restlessly around the ship's holding cell. All activity stopped when a male voice echoed through the ship.

"Hello, Astraeus. We trust that you're all well and enjoying your flight. Well, perhaps _enjoying _is too strong a term, but our readings do confirm that everyone survived the launch. Congratulations." Angry voices rose up around the ship. Grace's was the loudest. "Who are you? What do you want with us?"

"I'm sure that you have questions. Unfortunately, we aren't in a position to provide answers at this time. However, please stand by. We will be putting you in touch with people you will want to speak with shortly." The audio feed went mute. Moments later, Henry's voice came over the line.

"Grace? Are you there? Is everyone ok?"

"Henry! Yes, everyone is fine." Thinking of Zane, she amended her statement. "So far as we know, anyway. _What _is going on? We aren't at Titan—we're orbiting around Earth. We haven't-".

"I'm so sorry, but we can only allow this connection to be active for a limited time." Beverly interrupted. "And we have a demonstration for you."

"Beverly—you can't do this! It's not too late, release the ship now," Allison broke in. "Allison? What an unpleasant surprise. You will have to tell me how you managed to stow away on the flight someday—if you survive it, that is." Beverly responded.

"Henry," she continued. "We know that you've spoken with the President. I suspect it wasn't to invite him to a retirement party for GD. So we thought a reminder of our control over this situation is in order. Is Jo Lupo there with you?"

At that, Jo jerked. She, Henry and Carter were alone in Allison's office, the others having left after Mansfield's briefing. They'd stayed behind to discuss various options of their own for rescuing Astraeus.

"I'm here," snapped Jo. "Good," said the male voice cheerfully. "If you'll look at the screen behind you, we'll get on with this. The audio feed to the ship will be suspended during our demonstration. Wouldn't want you to spoil the plot for them."

Jo turned to see an image of a computer console. Blood spots were scattered across the screen, but the words across it were legible. Her eyes stopped at the last sentence: "SECONDARY CONTROL, Z. DONOVAN." She, Carter and Henry tensed, wondering where this was going.

"I believe you know Mr. Donovan. In fact, we understand that you were instrumental in arranging for him to be pardoned. Very nice of you, but I'm afraid it may have been for naught. What you see on the screen is the tip of a rather extensive record we've created. Unfortunately for Mr. Donovan, we've quite clearly linked him to sabotage of the ship. If we don't receive the cooperation we've asked for in closing Eureka and the ship goes down, all evidence will point to him as being responsible."

"So what?" challenged Jo. "We know what has happened—even the _President _knows that the Consortium is behind this. You won't be able to pin this on anyone else."

"Ah, yes. In the event that the public was to learn of our involvement—rather unlikely, we'd guess, since they don't yet know that Eureka exists—rest assured that it will appear that Donovan was our inside man. Proving otherwise will be quite difficult, especially with his history. He'll go back to prison and, this time, will be facing the death penalty." The man seemed almost gleeful at this possibility.

Forcing herself to sound calm, Jo spoke deliberately. "That _is_ unfortunate—for him. I have to wonder, though, why you think I care? Especially enough to interfere with anything that will bring you down."

"Yes, I thought we'd get to that." Beverly was speaking again. "See, I feel like I know you well, Jo. Enough to know that you aren't exactly comfortable with emotion. You're very controlled—it was unusally hard to push you to leave Eureka long enough to give us free access to your boyfriend, or whatever you're calling him these days. But, we managed."

"I left for my own reasons," Jo scoffed, although she caught the worried look exchanged by Carter and Henry.

"Yes, but I think we were able to make your departure a bit quicker than you'd planned. I expected you'd get all the way to California before the effects of our… _suggestion_… wore off, but you surprised me. In any event, I imagine that you've found your emotions to be a bit…unpredictable lately, yes?" Beverly asked. Jo pressed her lips together and said nothing.

"Well, don't worry. They aren't yours. So long as you're emotionally attached to Mr. Friends-with-benefits, you'll feel what he's feeling. We'll let you go back to your old reserved self soon, but we needed to have someone at GD really appreciate the situation we worked so hard to place your whatever-he-is in. It would have been easier if you two hadn't been so ridiculously indecisive with each other, but again—we managed. Listen." The sound of pacing footsteps replaced Beverly's voice.

"Hello, Zane," she said. "You fucking bitch! You won't-" Zane's voice was cut off as if he'd been strangled. "Language," chided Beverly. "So sorry for this, but we need to make a point."

Zane's image appeared on the screen in place of the computer console. His hands were pressed against the life support monitors attached to his temples and he was breathing hard. Shaking the reaction off, he stomped to the glass wall of the cell and began pounding on it, cursing creatively. "Language, I said," sighed Beverly and Zane yelped in pain. He doubled over, jerked as he took another shot to the head, then dropped to his knees.

Bent over in her chair, Jo was moaning, eyes tightly closed. Carter was beside her, hands gripping her shoulders. "Jo? Jo!" The screen went black and the sound of Zane's voice stopped. Jo opened her eyes, which swam with unshed tears.

"Now that we've established that you do care about Donovan's future, no more games. Get Eureka closed or the ship goes down, people die and he takes the blame." The male voice was no longer cheerful. "You have 17 hours."

**A/N: I know this story has been pretty dark, but I don't seem to be able to work in the comedy bits like the show's writers do so well. Guess that's why they get paid the big bucks…anyway, what's that old saying about things being darkest before the dawn? Things will start looking up in this story soon. Promise.**


	4. Chapter 4

End Game (Chapter 4)

**A/N: Whoo, hoo! Yay for insomnia—three chapters in one day. Here's chapter four, and we're not done yet.**

"We _have_ to stop this," Jo started for the door with no definite idea of what she planned to do. "Jo, no." Carter reached an arm out to stop her progress. "What that guy said…" She turned, recognizing the "ah-ha" quality to Carter's voice. "What?" she asked.

"Zane being blamed for Astraeus crashing, and going to prison for it." Jo rubbed her arms against the goosebumps that went up them at Carter's words. "How could he be convicted for the crash if he was on the ship when it went down?" Jo shuddered. "So they aren't consistent. Or they're lousy at organization. So what?" she asked.

"So maybe they're making this up as they go along." Carter answered. "Which means…" Henry finished the thought. "Which means that they're scrambling, that something in their plans went sideways and they're hoping to keep us too off balance to notice."

"Well, they succeeded," muttered Jo. "I'm sorry, Carter, but I don't see how anything good comes from Zane dying rather than going to prison."

"Neither will happen, Jo. You've got to believe that. But I think this…_connection_…you two have is the key here. It gives us some kind of opening, if only we knew what." Carter's PDA buzzed and he read its message. "That's Kevin. I need to talk to him."

Henry nodded. "I'll examine Jo, see if I can find out how she's feeling Zane's emotions. If we can figure out how that's happening, maybe we can use the connection to our advantage."

"How?" huffed Jo in frustration. "You saw him—he's locked up. If we can't communicate with the others on the ship to convince them to let him go, there's nothing he can do."

"Yeah, well," said Carter. "One step at a time, Jo. One step at a time." He raised the PDA to his ear. "Kevin? How you doin', buddy?" Carter's voice faded as he walked away. Henry gestured for Jo to go ahead of him, and they rushed to the infirmary.

_EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA_

Turning her tablet toward Zane, Allison pointed to a small dot on the screen. "That's it? That's what's been messing with my head?" he asked. She nodded.

"They're nanobots—much tinier and more rudimentary than the ones they put in me. These are basically binary in function, just on and off. I think the on setting for most of them makes you susceptible to suggestion, sort of like hypnosis, while others carry an electrical impulse that's caused the pain you've been having. From the analysis, it looks like some of the latter group can transmit as well—that may be how Beverly and her henchmen are monitoring your actions."

"Great. How did they get in me? I thought you said the pre-flight exams would catch stuff like this."

"I don't know for sure, but I think they were carried in on blood cells, so weren't detected in the neuro scans. All of the crew members and candidates had regular blood tests—these could have been introduced into your blood stream at any time. If they were on cells in the syringe, just a little backflow from it would have been enough to infect you." Allison stopped at the expression of repulsion on Zane's face. She understood it well—the idea that some _thing_ was in your body, controlling your actions against your will was worse than any nightmare. She'd wanted to claw the bots out of herself when she'd discovered them, and imagined Zane was feeling much the same way now.

"Fortunately, I think your nosebleed may have substantially diluted the concentration of bots inside you, as well as their effect. Blood cells turnover very quickly in the body—any infected ones still inside you should disintegrate soon. Your immune system should respond against the bots and, without a source of cellular metabolism, they'll eventually break down as well," she said soothingly.

"Eventually," Zane said dryly. "Yes," Allison said, aware there was no way to sugarcoat the news for him.

He rested his head against the glass of the holding cell for a moment, then looked up. "I can't just stay locked up here. Whatever is going on, they needed me to make it happen. _You _need me to stop it. I've got to get back into the nav system, look at the codes I was working on when the bugs grabbed the wheel."

"Zane," Allison shook her head regretfully. "If the remaining bots are still active enough, they could take control of you at any time. Or worse—make you do something that could make our situation even more precarious."

He spoke over her insistently. "Look, I know you can't trust me. Even _I _can't trust me until these things are gone. But we don't have any choice or any time left—you've got to let me work on fixing this. Do whatever you have to do for security—put a guard on me, hell, shoot me if you have to. I don't care. Just don't leave me back here where I can't help." Zane took a deep breath. "_Please_, Allison."

She looked at him for a long moment, then shook her head and walked away. He slumped, dropping his head back against the glass. Until he heard a click, and looked up to see Allison pulling a gun off a rack across from the cell. She stared at it in her hand, then turned back to Zane. "Now I'm losing _my _mind again," she said ruefully before unlocking the cell to release him.

"Thanks," Zane said with relief. "You won't regret this." At Allison's raised eyebrows, he grinned. "I hope," he added.

"Go on," she said, gesturing to the door. "Maybe I'll give this to Grace," she waved the gun slightly and sighed. "She may want to shoot us both."

Stunned silence greeted them when Zane and Allison entered the main control room on Astraeus. Less than half the crew members were present while others were working on systems elsewhere in the ship. Afterward, the half who'd been in the room painted a bizarre picture for those who'd been missing.

Zane Donovan, flight suit splattered with dried blood, walked into the room not long after being escorted from it by an armed guard. Allison Blake, who most on the crew knew only as GD's Chief Medical Officer, was a step behind with a gun aimed at Zane's back. Despite that, he was smiling. She was not. People in their path scattered, expecting heaven only knew what to happen.

Grace stepped forward, her face a question mark. "Allison?" "It's all right," said Allison. "I hope." She filled Grace in quickly. After a moment, Grace instructed the guard who'd taken Zane to the holding cell to watch him closely. She asked Fargo to sit next to Zane and do the same. With that, Grace agreed to allow Zane access to the navigation system.

Allison handed the gun to the guard, who pointed it at Zane. Fargo paled. Zane shrugged at him. "You get used to it," he said, and dove into the data stream.

_EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA_

Jo breathed heavily, skin crawling with revulsion. Bots. Little microscopic cousins of the roach-like things Zane had designed to build Astraeus. Floating around in her blood.

She _hated _needles and the idea that the one she'd finally succumbed to for the Astraeus candidate blood tests had _infected_ her was horrifying. Moreover, if Henry was right about how she was experiencing Zane's emotions, he'd been infected as well. Which meant the _things_ in their bloodstreams were talking more now than she and Zane had before he'd left.

Dropping her head into her hands, Jo wondered if Special Forces would take her back. Life with them had never been enjoyable, but it had never involved sentient bugs, black holes or genetically modified bat guano either. Not to mention almost-ex-fiance-alternate-timeline-lovers/friends, with or without benefits. Remembering Beverly's taunts about her relationship with Zane, Jo gritted her teeth and looked up at Henry.

"So, what now?" she asked.

"I want you to see if the bots will do more than receive information," said Henry. "If you can use them to transmit data back to Zane, any at all, that will at least give us some kind of communications pathway to the ship." Jo's jaw dropped slightly. "How on earth do I do that?"

"That," said Henry, "I don't know. We can't even be sure it's possible. But it seems that you've been able to read Zane's emotions when they're strong ones—like fear or anger. I'm not suggesting you try to feel those things, but it will probably take some kind of strong feeling to reach him."

Jo stared at Henry. She didn't _do_ strong emotions, at least not when it could be avoided. And never in public, if at all possible.

As if hearing her last thought, Henry took a step back. "I'll just…" he gestured to the infirmary door. "Leave you alone for a while. See what you can come up with." He left quickly.

Jo sat on the end of an infirmary bed with her eyes closed, feeling faintly ridiculous. How was she supposed to just conjure up some strong emotion out of nothing? Especially here, in this sterile environment packed with beeping machines? Sighing, she opened her eyes and looked around. Her gaze came to rest on a bed across the room.

Suddenly her mind was filled with the memory of Zane lying in that bed, desperately sick. He'd been exposed to a virus through contact with an organic computer in the other timeline. The virus caused violent seizures which had killed another person before other Zane was infected. He'd told her he loved her for the first time from that bed. And she'd crawled into it after he was asleep, curling up next to him as if her body could shield him from pain.

Pain. Her stomach lurched at the more recent memory of seeing this Zane fall to his knees, under attack from the same bots that were circulating through her body. Anger bubbled up inside of her. She might not be able to tag their relationship with a definition, but she knew this Zane was essentially the same person as the man she'd loved in the other timeline. He didn't deserve to die for living out his dream of going to space, and neither did the 20 other people aboard Astraeus. Or the people wherever the ship might crash.

At the thought of Astraeus crashing, a lump rose in Jo's throat. She closed her eyes as she imagined the horror the people aboard would experience in their last moments. Their faces swam before her. Fargo. Allison. Grace. Holly. Zane. Her hands curled into fists. Zane. Thanks to Beverly, she'd left him again not knowing how she felt. A painful pattern for both of them they seemed doomed to repeat, first in the previous timeline, now in this one. Unless…

She took a deep breath and tried to concentrate. She summoned up every image of Zane she could think of that she associated with any kind of good memory. Zane hugging her when he and Fargo returned from space the first time. Zane kissing her in the shell of her burned out home. Zane leaning over her, showing her how orbital dynamics worked, voice as excited as a kid with a new toy. Zane leaning over her in different way, their bodies wrapped around the other's, eyes locked together.

With all her might, she tried to push the wave of love that followed on the wake of her memories…_out._ To him, through the bots and vast areas of space. For several minutes, she was lost in the effort, only to stop when she felt nothing in return. No difference in her emotions—the ones she was feeling had been wonderful, but were clearly her own, not Zane's.

Sagging with disappointment, Jo slid off the bed. She was almost at the door to tell Henry the experiment had failed when a sharp wave of feeling hit her. She grabbed at the wall as images began to fly across her mind. She saw the same memories she'd been thinking of moments before, but from a different perspective—Zane's. The last of her memories lingered then faded, replaced by one of their last moments together before the launch. He told her again that she'd never been a hookup to him, and she actually felt his mouth on hers.

The wave of emotion that followed literally took her breath away. She was gasping for air when Henry came through the door. "It worked," she said. Henry clapped his hands together and smiled broadly. Carter came up behind him. "Great—Henry and Parrish have an idea. If you can get it back to Zane, they might be able to land safely." He and Henry turned to go.

"Carter," Jo said softly. He turned. She was still standing with her hand on the wall as if it was holding her up. "Zane…he loves me." She sounded shocked.

Carter rolled his eyes. "Well, duh," he said. "Sorry, Jo, really happy you see that, but it's not exactly a news flash for the rest of us. Let's go—ship to save and all, ok?" He followed Henry, and Jo followed him, smile slowly spreading across her face.


	5. Chapter 5

End Game (Chapter 5)

Zane rubbed his eyes tiredly. Between being blasted off to the wrong destination in space, attacked by miniscule robots and losing both blood and consciousness, it had been a long day. He was exhausted, but didn't dare close his eyes for long. He'd tried it once, and the security minion had nearly jumped out of his skin. The guy was clearly itching to take action at the sign of any unusual behavior. Apparently he felt it was better for Zane to be locked away than helping save the crew, including the grunt with a gun.

Or maybe he was just bored. For the first hour that Zane worked on the nav system, the guard was alert. Now he was slumped on the console, looking barely awake himself. Fargo was on Zane's other side, muttering to himself as he worked on getting the communications system running.

Which was getting really annoying. As much as Zane had come to like Fargo, and appreciated his friendship, the guy's social skills went south from time to time. Finally, he'd had enough and barked "Would you _stop_?" at Fargo. The security guy jumped and two-handed the gun toward him. "_Really_?" asked Zane incredulously. Fargo waved his hands at the guard, saying "Don't shoot!" Groaning, Zane dropped his head to the console.

As soon as he closed his eyes, an incredible feeling of warmth went through him. Images flashed across his mind like a movie. Memories of being with Jo, all good ones. Trying to ignore the argument between Fargo and the guard behind him, Zane allowed himself to focus on the images and the feelings they evoked. He felt soothed, loved and…wrong. Something about these memories didn't make sense.

One problem was obvious—Jo had never said she loved him, at least not in this timeline. Sometimes it felt like she wished they'd never gotten involved. So the…_acceptance_…he felt now didn't fit any of his memories. His memories…he suddenly realized the other thing that felt off. All of the scenes he was remembering had happened, but he was seeing them again from a different perspective. _Jo's_ perspective.

Just as his tired mind grasped that point, Fargo's hand fell onto his shoulder. "Um, Zane? I think you better sit up now. You ok?"

He raised his head. Fargo was looking at him with concern, as was Allison, who'd come to the console when the shouting began. The guard had lowered the gun, but was still on full alert. Zane shook his head to clear it.

"I'm_ fine,_" he said. "Really—in full control. I'm just tired." He straightened, trying to look more awake and less like someone being governed by tiny robots. His gaze dropped to the computer screen and he frowned.

"What?" said Fargo nervously.

"That's the destination codex," said Zane, pointing to the screen. "But it's not complete. At the start, it has us leaving orbit to land somewhere. But there's no command to identify the landing location. Or even to point us at it—according to this, we leave orbit then…nothing."

"That's…not good," Fargo said slowly. "What would happen if we left orbit without an end destination selected?" asked Allison.

Zane grimaced. "We could crash." The guard twitched. "But that's not likely. There are a ton of fail-safe systems on this thing that would trigger to prevent that unless a specific command pushing us to the ground was entered."

Fargo leaned in to peer at the code. "This and this are fail-safe triggers," he said excitedly. "They've been disabled. But the rest of the triggers are ok."

He turned to Zane. "This must have been what they, the things…you know, the _bots,_" he sputtered. "What they had you doing. Setting up destination codes and disabling the fail-safes. But you stopped it! So all we have to do is put in Eureka as the final destination, re-establish the disabled fail-safes and _bam_! We are going home!" Fargo fist pumped and put up his hand for a high-five with Zane.

Zane shook his head and pointed back to the screen. "No. It's not going to be that easy." He sighed and looked up at Fargo. "I'm really good at this stuff, but this is one time I wish I wasn't. See that?" He tapped a line of code. "That's a back door. There weren't any in Astraeus' original programming, so I must have put this one in."

"Sooo, close it, right?" said Fargo tentatively, but Zane was shaking his head again. "Back doors aren't worth much if they don't stay open for whoever wants to access the system from the outside. If access is really important, you can booby-trap the door. If someone tries to close it, even whoever set it up, the trap goes off."

"What exactly does this trap do?" asked Allison warily.

Zane was quiet for a long moment, staring fixedly at the screen. When he spoke, his voice was strained. "If we don't shut it down before it goes off…it blows us up."

"Boom?" asked Fargo in a high-pitched voice. Zane nodded. "Boom."

"Fix this, Zane. Fix it _now._" His head and Fargo's swiveled to Allison. She was leaning over the console. Although neither of them had ever seen her lose control, she was clearly livid. "I know that this isn't your fault," she said, although her tone said otherwise. "But I have two children at home and a life. We all do. And I am _not_ letting Beverly Barlowe and a few lines of _computer code_ take that away."

She spun toward Grace, who had walked up in time to hear Zane's explanation about the booby-trapped program. "Everyone who knows anything about computer programming needs to get over here now." Grace nodded, looking grim. She reached over the console and flipped on an audio feed to the ship. "Attention. If you can program computers, set up networks or," she glanced at Zane, "have any experience in hacking, report to the main control room immediately."

She looked to Allison, who seemed calmer, and turned to Fargo. "Douglas, you and anyone who has the right experience will help Zane find a way to deactivate the trap program. However, do not deploy any correction until you clear it with me." She looked at Zane contemplatively for several moments. He was pale and dark circles lined his eyes, which were still on Allison.

"How do you feel?" she asked. "Be honest, please. We don't have any margin for error here. If you're impaired at all, you're susceptible to interference. I do _not_ want to have to go through you to retake control of this ship." Zane winced, but didn't answer right away. Grace's tone softened.

"Zane, I know you feel like this is your fault, but it isn't. You're better qualified than anyone to work on this problem, but no one person can fix it. It will take a team effort. We have other resources. So, I ask again—are you sure that you're…_you_?"

He thought about the memories he'd experienced from Jo's point of view. Those hadn't been his thoughts, but they hadn't felt threatening either. Still, they could have been planted to play with his emotions, keep him off balance. Or maybe it was stress, making him see what he wanted to see, that Jo cared as much as he wished she did.

He looked directly into Grace's eyes. "I'm fine." She said nothing, holding the eye contact. He resisted the urge to look away until she nodded. "OK, get to work."

_EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA_

Jo paced back and forth behind Henry, Parrish and several other GD scientists. They were debating what to tell the Astraeus crew to do if they managed to tap into Jo's connection to Zane. She was becoming increasingly anxious, wishing that there was anything at all she could just _do_ now. The waiting and talk were wearing on her last nerve.

Carter wasn't faring much better. He'd been tapped by Senator Wen to pull records and other information together for the military teams who'd arrived at GD in droves. While he respected their abilities, however, he had the nagging sense that military assistance wouldn't help, and might actually make the situation worse. At least he wasn't wearing a suit—when Wen had started to suggest it, his glare would have cut through steel.

He had just shown a team to an empty lab when Jo came stomping around the corner. Seeing Carter, she threw her hands up. "Fourteen hours, Carter. _Fourteen!_ That's all we have left and they're in there just _talking_." She huffed. "I'm really getting sick of scientists, you know?"

"No, you're not," said Carter indulgently. "I think there's at least one you still feel pretty good about." Jo smiled briefly, then the smiles slid off both their faces. "They're coming home, aren't they?" she asked softly. He reached around her for a quick hug. "Absolutely. They'll be home before we know it."

She stepped back, feeling better. And then she didn't. A sense of shock, then almost…despair ran through her. "Zane," she whispered. "Something's wrong." They exchanged a worried look, then rushed back to Henry.

He and Parrish were bent over a tablet when Jo and Carter came into the room. "Something's wrong," gasped Jo. "I can feel it—he's…really scared." At their blank looks, she added "Zane doesn't do scared. Not often, anyway. He covers it with jokes, or acts out, but this, this is different."

Henry nodded and gestured for her to sit. "Try to stay with it. Concentrate on what he's feeling—try to think of something similarly powerful for yourself." Jo shook her head. "Jo, I know this is hard, but it's the best chance we have." Sighing, she pressed her eyes closed and felt a chill go up her back. What was frightening Zane so badly? Of course, he _should_ be afraid—the whole crew was probably terrified—but this was tinged with what? Guilt? That didn't make sense.

At the thought of guilty feelings, Jo suddenly remembered Zane's face when he proposed to her in the earlier timeline. She'd been staring in shock at the ring box she'd opened when she'd turned to see him go down on one knee. It wasn't as though she'd never thought of marrying him—in fact, she'd thought of it a lot. But she'd never expected him to make the first move. She'd gotten used to thinking of herself as being more committed than he was, more in control of the relationship.

Control. Had that been what caused her to hesitate? Reluctance to cede control over what came next for them to Zane? At that, and the memory of the hurt on his face when she hadn't answered him, Jo felt her own stab of guilt. The emotion magnified, mixing with her fear for him, until she was nearly gasping at it. She felt Henry's hand on her arm.

"Jo, take this." He pressed the tablet into her hands. "Concentrate on the image. See if you can…_send_ it to Zane." Still reeling from the wave of guilt and fear, she looked at the screen. A string of 1s and 0s spread across it.

"Henry," she protested. "I can't memorize this!"

"You don't have to. Just _look_ at it," he urged. She shook her head, then stared at the numbers. Nothing happened—to the contrary, the emotion she had been feeling faded. With a huff of frustration, she was about to give up when she felt a tickle of feeling. Like a question being asked. Her fingers tightened around the tablet, knuckles whitening.

"Zane," she thought. "Whatever this is, _use _it." Although it seemed ludicrous, she cast her mind around for some meaningful memory she could use to boost their connection. Her cheeks flushed as one came to mind—the last night she and Zane had shared.

She'd told him that she wouldn't wait for him, that she had things to figure out before she could make that kind of promise. He'd taken it surprisingly well, seeming to appreciate her honesty. They'd gone their separate ways until he'd knocked at her door later that night.

When she opened the door, he spoke quickly, looking at his feet. "So you know? If things were reversed, if you were going away and I was staying here, I'd wait for you." He shrugged, glancing up at her before saying, "Just thought you should know."

He was nearly to the curb when she came unfrozen and followed. He turned as she approached, and she leapt into his arms, wrapping her legs around him. They kissed until both were breathless, and he slowly lowered her until her feet touched the ground. Without a word, she led him inside.

They didn't sleep at all until dawn, but when she woke, he was gone.

As that memory lingered, she felt love edged with loss. As well as acceptance for her decision not to go to Titan, to stay behind and find whatever she needed. Wrapped in that feeling, she stared at the tablet until her eyes ached. When a small sense of certainty and hope filled her, she finally closed her eyes.

"Jo?" asked Carter. She looked at him and nodded. "He has it. I think he understands." Henry and Parrish blew out sighs of relief and grinned. "What was that?" she asked.

"Code for a back door into the Astraeus navigational system that will link it to the FTL modules here. With it, we can break in to control the ship's flight. If the Consortium tries to bring it down, we can intervene. And, hopefully, we can bring them home no matter what," Henry explained.

"Will that work?" Carter asked. Henry looked at him for a long moment and smiled. "Theoretically," he said.

_EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA_

Zane stared unfocused at the computer screen in front of him. Word of the trap door problem with the navigational system had quickly spread beyond the working group assigned to find a solution for it. Reaction was mixed, but many crew members regarded Zane as if he'd become contagious. One who'd never gotten along with him before the mission appointed himself a second guard, standing over Zane with arms crossed until Fargo shooed him away.

"We've got enough problems without people being assholes about it," muttered Fargo. Zane had shot him a look of gratitude, but felt lingering guilt about his role in giving the Consortium control over the ship. Logically, he knew they'd had the launch codes and most of what they needed for navigation without him. His programming skills had only given them a back-up plan, and he hadn't been a conscious participant in using them.

But if he'd hoped this mission would be a fresh start for him, that hope had been pretty well dashed. He might not be guilty of anything but being an attractive scapegoat, yet at least some of the people around him had already voted for conviction.

Guilt. The thought had a lot more power than it should. In fact, he felt awash in it. Here they were again—emotions he'd swear weren't his own. His fingers tightened around the edge of the console as images began to fly across his memory, again from Jo's perspective. Although he was in them all, there were some he'd never actually experienced. A proposal. Jo's hesitation.

He closed his eyes as more familiar images appeared. Talking to Jo in Café Diem. Standing at her doorstep. Kissing her on the sidewalk. Being inside of her in bed. Holding her as she slept. And…numbers?

Without deciding to do so, Zane began to enter the numbers in his mind into the computer. His fingers moved faster as he realized what the code was for—another back door. This one linked to GD, a link that could be used to bring them home, and compete with the Consortium's control if necessary. Hope began to spark as he reached the last line of code.

"Hey!" Hands grabbed him roughly, pulling him away from the keyboard. His eyes snapped open to see the guard standing over him, gun drawn, while the crew member who Fargo had shooed held Zane's arms.

"Let me go!" Zane shouted. "There's nothing wrong!" He looked at Fargo. "It's me—nothing and no one else." Grace stepped forward. "Zane, what were you doing?"

"We need another back door so GD can take control of navigation—they can link us to the FTL modules and bring us home. I was finishing the access program when these morons grabbed me." He pushed back against the scientist behind him, knocking the man to the floor. The guard with the gun raised it.

"Stop!" ordered Grace, holding her hand up. She turned back to Zane. "I told you not to execute on any program without my authorization." He stiffened. She had, but if he'd stopped he would have lost the image of the code in his mind. "How did you know what code to enter to link to GD?"

He looked at her. She would think he was crazy if he said he'd _felt _it. Hell, he wasn't convinced that he _wasn't_ losing his mind. Looking at the faces around him, his heart sank. No way could he get them to believe him. He shook his head. "I just knew."

After a long moment, Grace's expression became sad. Turning to Fargo, she said, "Make sure sure that the code he entered can't be executed." Without looking again at Zane, she spoke to the guard. "Take him back to the holding cell." When the guard jerked on Zane's arm, she added sharply, "_Don't_ hurt him." To Allison, she said, "Could you please go with them? See if you can confirm what happened."

Allison nodded and started to the door. Zane's head swiveled between them. "You _have _to believe me. If you don't let me finish that link-up to GD, we don't have a chance." The guard pushed him after Allison. "You're giving us a death sentence!" Zane shouted back at Grace as he went down the hallway.

Behind him, the control room fell absolutely silent.

**A/N: Longest chapter I've ever written. Helped get me through the "8 pm on Monday and Eureka isn't on" blues. More to come!**


	6. Chapter 6

End Game (Chapter 6)

As they made their way to Astraeus' version of a jail, Zane struggled against the security guard's hold until Allison finally shouted at him to stop or she'd shoot him herself. Exasperated, the guard was happy to leave them after pushing Zane into a holding cell.

"Allison, I am _fine_," he said for umpteenth time. She came up to the glass. "I believe you." Startled, Zane stepped forward. "Great, then let me out," he demanded. She shook her head.

"You're safest here for now—emotions are running high. I will re-run the scan I _finally_ got from you," she said, referring to his complete lack of cooperation, "and will come back to release you if—when-it's clear, as soon as possible. If they come out as I think they will, the results will forestall any argument about your participation in re-programming the nav system. In the meantime, use this time to rest—you can't be of any use if you're exhausted."

"We're all tired," he shot back. "But it won't matter if we're dead."

"Stop, Zane, _please_." The strain of a trip to space outside of a bio-pod followed by hours of fear that she'd never see her children or Jack again showed on Allison's face. Zane quieted. "I'll be back." Allison started to walk away.

"Allison," he called out. Sighing, she turned. "If I'm going to stay here, can I at least monitor what's happening?" He gestured to a flat screen mounted across from the cell. She cocked an eyebrow at him, and he fought to keep his face a picture of innocence. Deciding she was too tired to argue, she pushed a remote control for the screen through a portal in the cell's door and left the room.

Zane waited for a few moments, then a grin spread across his face. He tossed the remote in the air and caught it. "Works every time," he chuckled, and pulled the remote's housing open.

_EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA EUREKA_

In GD's mission control room, a brief celebration broke out when the tracking system captured a signal for Astraeus. At last, they could follow the ship's path, even if they still couldn't do anything to change it.

After multiple failed attempts to establish a connection between the FTL modules at GD and the ship's nav system, Henry had to admit defeat. The handshake protocol for connection of the systems would begin, so it seemed that at least some of the back door code he and Parrish developed was in place. But the critical last signal that would complete the connection wouldn't go through.

"Maybe Zane didn't get the whole code," he mused out loud. Turning to Jo, he asked "If we gave you the code again, do you think you could…" For a moment, he was at a loss to put words to what he wanted her to do. The idea of shooting data across millions of miles on a stream of emotion was patently absurd. So much so that the scientist in Henry balked against suggesting it again. Embarrassed, he continued. "Could you _push_ it out to him?"

She held her palms up. "I'm still not sure I believe it's possible, but I'll try." Closing her eyes, she imagined reaching for Zane with her mind. It felt ridiculous, and she groaned with frustration. "Nothing."

"I know this seems crazy. But please try again—think of something that will absolutely get his attention." Jo considered Henry's request. There was one thought that _always_ stopped Zane in his tracks, she thought wryly. Glancing at Henry, she felt her face turn red. Understanding, he stepped away. "I'll just…leave you to think for a bit," he said, handing her his tablet.

Here we go again, she thought. After looking around to make sure she was alone, Jo closed her eyes. For this train of thought, she had a lot of memories to choose from—weeks and weeks from this timeline alone. I ought to be embarrassed by the sheer quantity, she thought, but the hell with it. She decided to go with different locations where she and Zane had made love, to narrow down the choices.

The burned out shell of her house, surrounded by partially standing walls. His townhouse (she blushed more deeply at the memory that they'd used every one of its rooms). S.A.R.A.H (Zane had disabled the smart house's monitor for Jo's bedroom). Her car (front and back seats). The cell in the Sheriff's office (for old time's sake). Her office's holding cell. Her office's _desk._

At the last, she had to fight back a giggle. That had been challenging, especially when she'd slipped on some scattered papers. They'd both fallen to the floor, laughing. Leaving him afterward had been heartwrenching.

She felt a surge of amusement and lust, touched with sadness. He'd felt it too—then and now. "Zane," she thought. "We've been at such cross-purposes, but I've loved being with you, so much. Please come home." Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes as she stared down at the last few lines of code glowing on Henry's tablet.

On Astraeus, Zane stood in the empty office he'd hidden in after jerry-rigging the remote control to open the holding cell's door. As another wave of memories and emotion hit him, he'd sagged to the floor. He'd begun to realize that there was nothing random about these incidents. The obvious explanation—that Jo was using them to communicate with him somehow—was too incredible for serious consideration. Then again, things nearly as bizarre had unquestionably happened during his time in Eureka, and he couldn't think of any other cause.

Except for the bots. And the possibility that he was simply losing his mind. Still, when an image of the back door code he'd been trying to enter into the Astraeus nav system appeared in his mind, he grabbed for a pen and paper to scrawl it down before it slipped his mind again.

When he'd finished, he took a moment to think through the memories he'd just seen. There wasn't a minute of them he regretted, but he was uncomfortably aware that they represented the majority of time he'd spent with Jo since learning of the timeline shift. She characterized their relationship as friendship. If he wanted more than that—and if she did—they would have to start being together as much out of bed as in it.

If he lived that long. Standing, he pulled a laptop toward him and began the laborious effort of hacking into the Astraeus nav system. It was even harder than it'd been before, since he had to do it without alerting anyone else in the system to his presence. If found having escaped the holding cell to finish coding the back door he'd been working on earlier, no one would wait for the results of his recent diagnostic scan. They'd lock him up and throw away the key.

Pushing back resentment, he focused on completely the hack and entering the last bits of code he'd gotten from…where? Some deep bit of his brain? Jo? Didn't matter, he had to get back to the holding cell before Allison or the guard returned. He slammed the laptop shut, checked the hallway outside the office door, and rushed back to the cell. He'd just closed the door and laid down when Fargo and Holly entered.

"Hey, how you doing?" asked Fargo. "I'm locked up—again," Zane responded. "What's going on?"

"We brought you food," said Holly, pushing a tray to him through the door slot. He nodded his thanks, and dove in, not having eaten since before the launch. "Otherwise, we haven't made much progress. We've been able to confirm where we'll come out of orbit—above Los Angeles—but not how to get control over what happens then."

She watched Zane eat. She'd only known him for a while, and had known about his relationship with Jo for even less time. Focused on her own relationship with Fargo and the upcoming mission, she hadn't given Jo and Zane much thought. But now, with the prospect that none of them would make it home to their loved ones, she wondered at it. It was hard to imagine how they'd gotten together. Certainly they were both physically attractive—although she'd never gone for bad boy types herself, she could see Zane's appeal. But Jo was a law enforcement officer while he was a former felon. She was very controlled…he wasn't.

She supposed it was a case of opposites attracting. But when opposites came together, the result was sometimes explosive. Looking at Fargo, she decided that she preferred being half of a more matched set.

"That back door you were working on," Fargo began. "What would it take to finish it? If, you know, Allison confirms that it was you entering it, and not some bots controlling your brain." He said the last apologetically, but Zane still glared in response.

"It was me," he ground out. "But too late—not sure I can remember the rest of the code." Since he'd already entered it, Zane allowed himself the satisfaction of letting them think they'd created more danger by not trusting him. He knew that wasn't fair—he had been infected with bots after all—but he was feeling cranky. He'd been on his best behavior for months, but still landed in a cell. Breaking out of it, he'd felt himself again, even if his behavior had been something he'd thought he wanted to leave behind.

Fargo opened his mouth, but the ship was rocked hard before he could speak. As if it had hit a wall, it slammed to a stop. The monitor on the wall flashed "_T minus 6 hours. Final destination set."_ The male voice they'd heard earlier over the ship's audio spoke.

"Attention, Astraeus. You have now reached the end of your flight. The ship is positioned above Los Angeles, California. You will remain in this position for the next 6 hours, or until we confirm that those on the ground have fully complied with our demands, whichever comes first. If those demands are not met within that time window, I'm afraid you will have a very bumpy, and very final, landing."

Beverly's voice replaced his. "We do not want to see the ship crash. We abhor the prospect of lost lives. I'm sure you share our feelings in that regard. However, the issues we're addressing are more important than your fate, or that of the people on the ground below you. We intend for the research being performed at Eureka to be permanently stopped, so no further weapons or acts of war can be developed from it. Many more lives will be at risk if that doesn't happen." She paused.

"So you can help us persuade those on the ground at GD and the military of the wisdom of compliance, we are opening a communications link to GD for the next half hour. We will be monitoring what you say, so please don't abuse this privilege. If you do, I'm afraid we will be forced to take early action that we would all regret." The audio feed went silent.

Fargo, Holly and Zane all stared at each other in horror. Before they could fully process what they'd just heard, Allison came into the room. Without a word, she opened the holding cell door.

"Let's go stop that bitch," she said grimly. They all rushed to the main control room.

**A/N: We rarely see Allison curse or otherwise lose much of her control. But she's had a longer history with Beverly than anyone on the crew. She surely hates the woman—I know I do. ;-)**


	7. Chapter 7

End Game (Chapter 7)

_One of this story's chapters has the usual don't own it disclaimer. Good enough._

Zane, Allison, Fargo and Holly arrived in Astraeus' main control room in time to hear part of a conversation between Grace and Henry.

"Your nephew really misses you. He's been counting down the minutes until you give him that catcher's mitt you promised him," Henry said. Zane, Fargo and Holly looked confused, but Allison exchanged a knowing look with Grace. Henry wasn't talking about baseball, he was referring to Eureka's Bosun Cloud Exciter, the device intended to capture Astraeus on its return from faster than light travel. "He's been asking for it—I'm surprised he hasn't snuck through the back door to snatch it."

Fargo looked anxiously at Zane and whispered, "Can you still get that open?" He'd caught on-Henry was telling them they had to give GD access to the Astraeus nav system through the back door that Zane had been coding before everyone had assumed it was the bots doing the work. Through the door, GD could link the FTL modules there to those on the ship and pull it home, catching it in the BCE.

"Already did," Zane answered, not looking at Fargo. "You said you forgot the rest of the code!," Fargo hissed in return. Zane gave him a shushing gesture. "I lied. So sue me—I was pissed off." "How-" Fargo started, but stopped when Zane punched his arm in warning. "Ow!" He finally quieted down.

"How touching," Beverly's voice broke into the conversation. "Henry, can we please get to the point? I believe you're all aware that less than 6 hours remain before Astraeus crashes into Los Angeles if we don't have confirmation of Eureka's imminent and permanent closure before then." She paused to let that sink in. "Is Zane Donovan there?"

All heads swiveled to Zane. His fists clenched as he answered. "I'm here." At GD, Jo gasped at the sound of his voice.

"Excellent. I believe you were interrupted in programming the navigation system to ensure that our plan could be fully executed. I'd like you to finish that work now," she said.

"Fuck you," answered Zane in an almost conversational tone.

"Tsk," Beverly responded. "We've talked about that potty mouth of yours, remember?" Stumbling forward, Zane doubled over in pain. He groaned as sweat broke out across his forehead. Allison reached for him, but he waved her off. "Careful—without me, you won't have anyone who has a clue how to do what you want. In fact, there's an idea-go right ahead, take me out. Then we're both screwed," he growled.

"Yes, that is a problem. Fortunately, we have other…_motivations._" The room was silent for a moment before a muffled shriek came over the audio feed. "Jo!" Carter's voice rang over the line. Zane stiffened. "You see, creating those little beasts you have in your blood was costly. We thought it best to leverage that investment by using them more than once. So, your…girlfriend, is it? Whatever…at least you and she now have something in common, you're both sharing our little bugs. So, if you don't want us to take _her_ out, I suggest you get started on the nav system and finish what we had you begin."

As if anticipating his compliance, several people onboard the ship stepped forward to block Zane from going to the nav console. As another moan from Jo came across the audio feed, he looked pleadingly toward Grace. When she didn't respond, he started at the people closest to him, only to have the guard and two others leap forward to hold him in place. He closed his eyes.

Grace stepped up to him and put her mouth against his ear, speaking almost too softly to be heard. "Do whatever you have to do to make it seem you're doing what they want. But we need the FTL connection to GD. If you can't do both, Jo would be the first to tell you to stop the ship from crashing, no matter what. Many more lives are at stake than hers or yours."

Zane nodded. When he opened his eyes again, he seemed to have aged several years. "Let him go," ordered Grace. A murmur of protest rose up around the room, but no one moved. Challenging Zane was one thing, mutiny something else altogether. By unspoken agreement, the crew seemed to be willing to put their trust in Grace and let the situation play out, at least for a while longer.

The room was utterly silent as Zane walked to the nav console. He sat, took a deep breath, and started to type. He pulled up the database for the fail-safe codes. Grimly, he began to disable the first of the six remaining barriers to the Consortium's control over the ship. He figured that if he dove straight into coding a connection to the FTL modules at GD through the back door he'd opened earlier, they'd catch him immediately.

"Zane." The thought tickled at the back of his mind. An image of Jo's face rose up, her eyes soft, hands around his shoulders. She was smiling, looking as she had when she'd learned that he'd been selected to go to Titan. "I'll be fine, do whatever is necessary to save them." The words flitted across his consciousness like the sound of a distant radio.

His fingers moved faster. Two fail-safes down. He hoped that if he moved fast enough, the FTL connections he entered would be lost from view in the data stream.

When he reached the section for the fourth fail-safe, he felt another kind of tickle in his mind. His eyes unfocused slightly. The code seemed to swim in front of him as he tried to focus on completing the FTL connections. When his vision cleared, he was jolted by the realization that he was already well into disabling the fifth fail-safe. His body tensed against the relentless push he'd begun to feel. He barely noticed when Fargo sat down next to him.

"Dude," Fargo said softly. "You're bleeding again." Without turning or slowing his typing, Zane muttered, "They're working against me. If I get to the next of these," he nodded his head toward the screen, where the words "FAIL SAFE 5.0" appeared. "Stop me. I'd rather it come from you than Deputy Dawg back there." Zane took a second to look at Fargo. Their eyes met, and a look of resigned determination came over Fargo's face. He nodded.

Zane jumped back and forth between the fifth fail-safe and the FTL connection, entering bits of data at a time to disable the former and activate the latter. Sensations competed in his head—moments of blankness broken up by the whisper of Jo's voice. "It will be fine," he heard her say. "We'll be fine. Just come home. I need you." He could almost feel her lips on his before losing all awareness again.

This went on until, with a jerk of horror, Zane realized that he was into the sixth and last fail-safe code. He swung toward Fargo, who had looked away toward Holly. When Fargo turned back, his eyes widened. At first, he did nothing. Zane's eyes lost focus and he turned back to the keyboard, starting to type again. "Oh, shit," groaned Fargo.

He seemed to be waging an internal war with himself for several long seconds before jumping to his feet and spinning toward the security guard. "Give me that," he demanded in a firm voice, gesturing to the gun. Startled, the guard responded instinctually to a direct order from the man he knew as the Director of GD and handed over the weapon.

Suddenly, the room was filled with the sound of screaming engines. Astraeus shuddered then tilted downward, picking up speed as it fell. Beverly's voice came over the audio.

"We _told_ you what the consequences would be if you tried to intervene. But you didn't listen. Military teams have broken into our facility." The audio crackled. "We will survive…but you won't. It's on your heads…" Her voice cut off. A gunshot echoed over the line.

In the mission control room at GD, people were frozen in place. The sounds of screaming engines and voices from Astraeus filled the room.

"Oh, my god, oh, my god…" babbled Senator Wen, who was standing behind Carter, Henry and Jo. "This wasn't supposed to happen."

Carter wheeled around. "What the hell do you mean, this wasn't _supposed_ to happen? Do you know something about this?"

He reached out and began to shake her. Her head swung back and forth like a rag doll's. "It was just supposed to be a threat, something I could use to divert Eureka's funding. We spend so much money on this place, all so a bunch of scientists can play mind games…".

She lapsed into incoherence as Carter released her with a push, pulling his handcuffs out. Before he could move, however, Jo stepped up and punched Wen in the face with a hard right hook. The woman fell to the floor, out cold. Jo looked at Carter, who nodded in grim satisfaction.

Behind them, Henry was shouting orders at the ground crew, who were frantically pounding keyboards all around the room. "Get the FTL connected and activate the BCE, _now_!" he yelled. A nearby scientist looked up, voice shaking as he said, "Sir, we don't know yet if the FTL is connected with the ship!"

Henry spoke deliberately, leaving no room for argument. "I don't give a good goddamn if we _know_ whether it's connected or not—TURN IT ON!" The man and his co-workers complied. All other eyes in the room were fixed on the tracking screen, which showed the ship's altitude dropping precipitously. 100,000 feet. 75,000 feet. 45,000 feet. 20,000 feet…the audio feed had gone horribly quiet, except for a sound terrifyingly like ripping metal.

Then the numbers vanished. Astraeus was gone from the sky.

**A/N: Yeah, I know…I'd be mad at me too for stopping here if I didn't already know what comes next, or at least….I think I do. ***_**insert evil laugh here**_*****


	8. Chapter 8

End Game (Chapter 8)

At GD, people staggered back as the Astraeus hangar filled with blue light from the BCE. When the glow faded, only a single object sat on the landing pad. A wing, jagged edges sticking up where it had torn away from the ship.

Stunned silence filled the room. Henry turned to Carter, devastation rendering him almost incoherent. "It should have worked…it _should _have…". They both looked toward the sound of soft crying behind them. Parrish was staring at the landing bay, tears streaming from his eyes. Behind him, Jo stumbled into a chair, shaking violently. Carter swiftly bent over, vomiting into a nearby trashcan. Afterward, he braced himself against the main control console, unable to speak.

Before any of them could speak, a shock wave shook the building. Blue light appeared again with blinding brightness, then disappeared as quickly as it had formed. The rest of Astraeus, battered and frayed, had come home.

Anticipating a surge to the ship, Henry recovered quickly enough to shout a command to stop over a loudspeaker. "Don't touch it! We have to run decontamination protocols." Fighting his own urge to pull Grace from the wreckage, Henry scanned the room to confirm that no one was too close before activating a decontamination field. Seconds that felt like hours passed until the process was complete. As soon as he had the all clear, Henry shouted "Go!" and raced out of the control room. Carter and Jo had already gone. Still using a cane from an earlier leg injury, Parrish followed slowly behind.

Medic teams quickly assembled and started into the ship. To clear their path, Carter and Jo paused to direct traffic, asking everyone except medical, security and command teams to remain outside. Then both rushed in, Jo heading for the bio-pod chamber while Carter climbed over debris in the opposite direction.

The bio-pod chamber and jump seat were empty. None of the crew had reached them before the FTL had activated. Jo pressed her eyes closed for a second, fighting her fear that the landing might not have been survivable. Briefly, she ran her fingers over the nameplate on Zane's bio-pod, telling herself that he and Fargo had survived one faster than light trip, so could surely survive another. Then she turned, rushing along the path Carter had taken toward the ship's main control room.

As she scrambled through the hallways, medics were already removing crew members from the ship. Most were ambulatory, if clearly shocked. A few were being carried on stretchers. Jo stopped in horror as one passed with Holly aboard. She was unconscious, a trickle of blood running from her head.

Ducking under a dangling ceiling panel, Jo continued on. Carter and Allison were moving slowly toward her. Allison was leaning hard against his body, their arms wrapped tightly around each other as they picked their way through the rubble. They nodded briefly to Jo, expressions a mixture of joy and relief.

When she reached the main control room, Henry and Grace were engaged in a quiet argument. He wanted her to have immediate medical attention, she was determined to remain with her ship until all its occupants were gone. It was clear that this was a debate Henry was destined to lose. Neither noticed as Jo slid past.

She froze in shock at her first sight of the Astraeus control room. It was nearly unrecognizable. Equipment had toppled, ceiling panels collapsed and smoke was swirling through the air, broken only by occasional sparks from exposed wiring. Through the haze, Jo could make out the shapes of people moving around, but none with Zane's distinctive form.

She was scanning the room frantically when a familiar voice came from the direction of the control console. "You _hit_ me!" it said in outrage. Zane. "You _told _me to!" Fargo whined in response. "Hey, I said to stop me, not break my skull. That gun was harder than hell." "Would you rather I shot you?" snapped Fargo. Zane didn't respond at first, then answered grudgingly. "Yeah, I see your point."

With a gasp of relief, Jo moved toward the voices. She was forced to step back as a medic swung toward her with a man strapped to a stretcher. It was Zane, his line of sight to her blocked by the medic's body. They were past before Jo could speak. She started to follow, then realized that Fargo must not know yet about Holly's condition. Sighing, she picked her way toward him. "Fargo!" she called.

"Jo, over here." She put an arm around his shoulders to steady him. "We're home, right? We made it?" he asked anxiously. "You're home." He lowered his head, briefly giving in to emotion. After a few moments, she pulled back.

"Holly…" she said hesitantly. Fargo's head shot up. "What?" "She's ok, I think. But you should go—they're taking everyone to the infirmary." Nodding, he started forward, only to stumble. Jo caught him. "Come on, I'll get you out." They walked slowly, leaving the remains of Astraeus behind.

As they left the hangar, a medic stepped forward to take Fargo's arm. "Come with me, sir. They'll see to you in the infirmary." With a shaky smile to Jo, Fargo let himself be led away. Carter spoke softly behind her. "They're all alive. Some in better shape than others but…alive. I didn't think…" his voice cracked. Turning, Jo wrapped her arms around him in a hug not unlike the one they'd shared scant days before when she'd left Eureka, not sure if she'd return.

Taking a deep breath, Carter smiled down at Jo. "Have you seen Zane?" he asked. "Only for a second," she said, frowning. "But he seemed ok. I was going to the infirmary-". She stopped at Carter's rueful expression. "Sorry, Jo, I know you want to check on him. Hell, I could care less about much of anything other than Allison right now myself. But the calvary's here—Mansfield wants a debriefing and isn't taking later for an answer."

"What about Wen?" Jo asked. "In custody," Carter answered coldly. By unspoken agreement, they decided not to waste any more energy on discussion of the Senator's involvement in the near tragedy. "And Beverly?" she asked, with greater interest. "Not sure…let's find out."

Mansfield, Grace and Henry were already in the Director's office when they arrived. Grace seemed fairly unscathed, save for cuts and bruises. As Carter and Jo sat, the door slid open again. Allison and Fargo walked in together. Carter went to her, not caring what Mansfield thought as he reached for her hands. Exchanging a glance with Fargo, she gestured to the desk. With a brief smile, he took his place in the chair behind it.

Speaking to the issue paramount on everyone's minds except Mansfield's, Fargo updated the others on the status of the Astraeus crew. They would all undergo an extensive physical examination, including a body scan and individual decontamination session. Anyone unable to walk would remain in the infirmary. With relief so strong his voice shook, he confirmed that all of the crew members were expected to recover fully from their injuries.

"Holly?" asked Jo softly. Fargo smiled proudly. "She's fine. Fell during the landing, but it'd take a lot more than a bump on the head to keep her down." Before she could ask about Zane's condition, Mansfield interrupted impatiently.

"That's outstanding news, Dr. Fargo. Thank you. But I still want a full report as soon as possible about everything that happened during the flight. Especially regarding the navigational programming—we need to know exactly how that ship came to be so off course, and why GD wasn't able to regain control more quickly." Fargo and Allison looked at each other for several long seconds before Fargo took the lead in responding.

"We think the Consortium changed the launch and navigation codes. We had no control from the moment the ship took off. We tried to override their programming, but the fail-safes were corrupted." He glanced at Allison. "It seems the Consortium was responsible for that as well."

Jo, Carter and Henry studiously avoided looking at one another. They didn't know all the details of Astraeus' flight, but knew that Fargo's version wasn't the whole truth. Zane's role in altering the navigational code—and his apparently successful effort in opening the back door to allow Astraeus to return home—had been omitted. Knowing Mansfield's dislike of Zane and resentment of his presence in Eureka, no one objected to Fargo's retelling. The truth wouldn't serve any purpose but to put Zane's newfound freedom at risk.

Mansfield was no fool. He sensed that he wasn't getting the full story. But considering the strain etched on the faces of those around him, he decided further investigation could wait. They'd been through enough for now.

Instead, he filled them in on the outcome of the military operation. It had gone as planned. With no advance warning, an elite team had descended upon the facility occupied by the Consortium in a desert region east of Los Angeles. The takedown had been swift and bloodless, with the exception of Beverly. The gunshot heard as the Astraeus began to fall from the sky had been fired by her. She'd aimed wildly, apparently hoping to distract rather than kill the invading soliders. It hadn't worked. She was winged by return fire, and was now on her way back to Guantanomo Bay. Beverly and her cohorts were unlikely to be released again anytime soon, if ever.

Jo shifted anxiously in her chair, the desire to see Zane now overwhelming. Fargo shot her a sympathetic look. "Chief Lupo," he said officiously. "I believe your time could be put to better use now aiding in the recovery effort. We need security to make certain that all data obtainable is preserved while memories are still fresh. Perhaps you can start by interviewing the other crew members. " Jo's relief at the excuse for escape he provided was short-lived.

Before Jo could leave, Mansfield interjected. "Yes, excellent idea. I would also like to speak with some of them. I'll join you," he said to Jo.

Nearly groaning in frustration, she stood. Fargo mouthed "sorry" to her and stood to follow. They all walked down to the medical wing. An argument from within the infirmary could be heard from several yards away.

"C'mon, Doc," a man's voice wheedled. "Just let me run the diagnostic and I'll let you go. You can come back and get bandaged up later if you want, but we have to do this now."

"Forget it. I've been here long enough—there's nothing wrong with me that can't wait. Go fix someone else." Zane came through the infirmary door, a harried looking medic at his heels. He stopped abruptly on seeing the crowd in the hallway, grey eyes quickly scanning the faces for the one he wanted to see.

Jo stepped out from behind Mansfield. She stood several feet from Zane, barely breathing at the sight. Blood drops decorated his jawline and neck. An angry looking red mark swelled above his right temple. His black flight suit was torn and stained down its front. Jo thought she'd never seen anything as gorgeous in her life.

With a soft cry, she ran toward him, leaping into his arms. Their mouths locked together, and Zane pulled her off the ground. Balanced against him, she wrapped her legs around his waist and he stumbled back against the hallway wall. If either was aware of the fairly sizable audience they had for their reunion, neither seemed to care.

Carter, Allison, Henry and Grace all grinned. Fargo's mouth was slightly open. He seemed lost in calculation, possibly wondering if he could manage to hold Holly's weight up in the way Zane was doing with Jo. Mansfield looked around them, expression outraged. "Lupo and _Donovan_?" he demanded of the group. No one answered.

Coming up for air, Zane looked toward the group. "Uh, a little privacy, people?" Jo laughed silently, head pressed into his chest. Her feet returned to the floor. "Well, you _could_ get a room," suggested Carter with mock exasperation. "We would, but it would be in _your_ house," Zane answered pointedly.

"Oh. Well then," Carter gave the group a shooing gesture. "Move along. Nothing to see here."

As they walked away, Mansfield sputtered, "This town is mad. Everyone in it—completely out of their minds." Carter turned to him with a smile. "Yeah. And we wouldn't have it any other way."

**A/N: And so ends our adventure in space. For those inclined to read such things (and old enough to do it), there's a Jo/Zane epilogue up in the M-rated section. Thanks for reading!**


	9. Chapter 9

End Game: Epilogues Part 2

_A/N: I wrote two epilogues for End Game. Both are in the M section, so here's a recap if you're not inclined or too young to read such things. In both versions, Zane and Jo left GD for a more intimate reunion at his place. Afterward, Jo told him that she still had things to think through, and felt that she needed to leave Eureka to do it. _

_In one version, she asks Zane to come with her and he agrees. In the other, she doesn't-when he wakes up the next day, she's gone. While I think both versions could plausibly appear on the show, the break-up one was unsurprisingly not anyone's idea of a good ending, including mine. This follow up would work with either epilogue._

Shortly after their discussion, Zane finally succumbed to sleep. He didn't wake for 14 hours. For a long while, Jo lay still, watching him breathe. Despite the bruises and lines of exhaustion crossing his face, he looked peaceful. And exactly like the image of him she still carried in her mind from the previous timeline.

Since the time shift, looking at Zane had been like looking at a photo with one image superimposed on, but out of alignment with, another. As much as she'd come to care for this Zane, his past self had always been a tangible presence. With a pang of loss, she realized she'd finally let the man in her memory go.

Yet the sadness was tinged with hope. She'd assumed that leaving one version of Zane behind would mean cutting both out of her life. Maybe that wasn't true.

Easing herself out of bed, Jo padded into the living room to retrieve her tablet. Sitting with it, her fingers hovered over a video file she'd downloaded months before, but never watched. It was a security feed which pre-dated her arrival in this timeline and featured her other self arresting this Zane for some minor infraction. She'd pulled the file out of curiosity, but froze every time she went to play it. The idea of seeing herself in a scene she hadn't lived out gave her an almost superstitious chill.

As she lay watching Zane tonight, however, it occurred to her that, thanks to the time shift, he was living out an alternate reality too. When he looked at her, maybe he saw the outlines of another Jo as well. If they were going to make things right between them, she needed to understand his perspective as much as she'd insisted he deal with hers. With a deep breath, she pressed play.

The video had been taken almost 3 years earlier in her office at GD. When Zane stepped into frame, her jaw dropped slightly in surprise. She'd forgotten how young he'd looked then. His hair was longer and worn in an edgier, spikier style. Clean-shaven and less muscular, he looked far more boyish than the man sleeping in the next room.

Laughing, digital Zane spun around toward someone out of frame. His eyes widened in surprise, and his hands shot up into the air. Jo watched herself advance on him, wielding a glowing taser. Despite the active weapon in her hand, her face was almost expressionless. He stepped quickly backwards, nearly stumbling off the step leading down into her office.

"Hey! Shit, Lupo, can't you take a joke?" video Zane protested. "Yes, when it's funny," her twin snapped. "But you stopped being amusing a long time ago. I know you think you're smarter than anyone else, but you're not. You're just a bigger pain in the ass."

"C'mon, Lupo. You know that's not true. It's just that you have such a great ass…" He took another step back when she raised the taser. "Besides, I'm pretty sure I _am_ smarter than anyone else in this hick town. Most of them anyway. _And _I'm cute—admit it, Lupo. The reason you keep throwing me in your cell is so you have something good to look at around here." His grin broadened.

"Smarter, huh?" she answered. "I guess that's why they demoted you to computer tech. Because that's _such_ a challenging position. Must really tax that big brain of yours."

The grin vanished from Zane's face. Watching it now, Jo bit her lip at the flash of hurt and frustration that replaced his teasing expression. In the film, Zane turned and walked into the holding cell without further comment. He sat down hard on the cell's bench, looking away from Jo.

If the pain on past Zane's face twisted Jo's heart, the expression on her video twin's face shocked her. It was raw longing. Her other self looked at Zane the way Jo remembered looking at the Zane from her own past. Attraction, curiosity, annoyance and hesitance—all the familiar emotions were there. Had this Zane appealed as much to her as she remembered him doing in her own time? If so, how had they become enemies in this timeline, but lovers in the other?

One likely answer presented itself in the video with past Jo's next words. She walked toward the cell and slammed the door. "Face it, Donovan," she said quietly. "You've screwed your life up already. Convicted of a felony before thirty and now you're doing everything in your power to blow parole too. Allison saved your ass by bringing you here and you can't even bother to be grateful. You've got a chance for a good life here, but you're throwing it away. And you don't even seem to care."

From inside the cell, Zane looked at her levelly. "Why would you care what happens to me, Lupo? I'm real clear on what you think of me—you told me yourself every time I asked you out. I'm a felon, a con with a record. Dating someone like me would sully your pristine reputation. You've never even asked why I did what I was busted for—it didn't matter to you. I broke the law, so I don't _count_ any more. If my life goes down the toilet, it's only what I deserve, isn't it?"

They looked at each other tensely. On the couch, Jo held her breath. "_Don't let him believe that's what you thought of him,_" she urged her other self. But on the screen, Jo just shook her head and walked from the room. In the cell, Zane dropped his head into his hands. The clip ended.

What had she been thinking?, Jo wondered. This time, that time…what was different? In her timeline, Allison had arranged for a plea bargain to bring Zane to Eureka. Under the deal, conviction for his theft of drug interdiction funds had been suspended. It would only be entered if he violated the deal terms. He hadn't.

This Zane, however, had been convicted and imprisoned for several months before Allison intervened. The experience had changed him, made him angrier and more reckless. He'd clearly managed to retain his freedom, but GD's security records indicated that he'd repeatedly skated closer to the edge. Had she been part of the reason?

In her timeline, she'd known that Zane's theft hadn't been for his benefit, but to replace funds someone else had stolen from an educational philanthropist who'd supported his work. The knowledge had helped her give him the benefit of the doubt, something her alternate self had apparently been unwilling or unable to do. Instead, she'd rejected him, insisting he didn't merit her acceptance.

Despite her feelings for Zane in both realities, a few variables tilting one way or the other hand produced vastly different outcomes in their lives. Dropping the tablet to the couch, Jo quickly returned to the bedroom. She knelt next to the bed, lightly running her fingertips over Zane's hair. Time had moved on. They were both different people now. Should they be together or not?

His eyes flickered. "Hey, Jo-Jo," he whispered sleepily. "Am I home?"

She had her answer. "Yes, my love. You're home." She kissed him gently as he fell back to sleep. Then she went out to buy groceries and bring her things from SARAH to Zane's place. Time to start over, again.


End file.
